Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Political Process - Political Advocacy

Americans create 57% of the world's advertising while representing only 6% of its population; half of our waking hours are spent immersed in the mass media. Persuasion has always been integral to the democratic process, but increasingly, thoughtful discussion is being replaced with simplistic soundbites and manipulative messages.

Drawing on the history of propaganda as well as on contemporary research in social psychology, "Age of Propaganda" shows how the tactics used by political campaigners, sales agents, advertisers, televangelists, demagogues, and others often take advantage of our...

The transmission of policy preferences from the mass electorate to the political elite is the subject of Warren Miller's illuminating new book. The elites of whom he writes are the delegates to recent nominating conventions analyzed in their subsequent roles as activists involved in presidential election campaigns. Miller's analysis delineates circumstances and conditions that affect the degree to which the issue preferences of these elite activists are more or less representative of those held by rank-and-file members of the nation's electorate.

Miller argues that, although consent...

Policing Dissent provides a firsthand account of the changing nature of control efforts employed by law...

Following landmark trade agreements between Japan and the United States in the 1850s, Tokyo began importing a unique American commodity: Western social activism. As Japan sought to secure its future as a commercial power and American women pursued avenues of political expression, Protestant church-women and, later, members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) traveled to the Asian coast to promote Christian teachings and women's social activism.

Rumi Yasutake reveals in Transnational Women's Activism that the resulting American, Japanese, and first generation...

Contributors: Kevin M. Carragee, Suffolk U; Catherine Corrigall-Brown, U of California, Irvine; Myra Marx Ferree, U of Wisconsin,...

Collective action through organized social movements has long expanded American citizens' rights and liberties. Recently, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has helped win living wage initiatives in more than 130 cities across the country. Likewise, congregation-based groups have established countless health, education, and other social programs at city and state levels. Despite modest budgets, these organizations--different in their approach, but at the same time working for social change--have won billions of dollars in redistributive programs.

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Collective action through organized social movements has long expanded American citizens' rights and liberties. Recently, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has helped win living wage initiatives in more than 130 cities across the country. Likewise, congregation-based groups have established countless health, education, and other social programs at city and state levels. Despite modest budgets, these organizations--different in their approach, but at the same time working for social change--have won billions of dollars in redistributive programs.

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The stories of civic experiments in...